Author: Jeffrey Spier
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 9780300116830
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 334
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Book Description
Published on the occasion of the exhibition organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and shown there November 18, 2007 - March 30, 2008.
Author: Maia Kotrosits
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 1451494262
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 279
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Book Description
Maia Kotrosits challenges the contemporary notion of “early Christian literature,” showing that a number of texts usually so described—including Hebrews, Acts, the Gospel of John, Colossians, 1 Peter, the letters of Ignatius, the Gospel of Truth, and the Secret Revelation of John—are “not particularly interested” in a distinctive Christian identity. By appealing to trauma studies and diaspora theory and giving careful attention to the dynamics within these texts, she shows that this sample of writings offers complex reckonings with chaotic diasporic conditions and the transgenerational trauma of colonial violence.
Author: Mikeal C. Parsons
Publisher: SBL Press
ISBN: 1628373598
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 391
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Book Description
This collection of eleven essays by biblical scholars, art historians, and experts in early Christianity explores a variety of topics and issues regarding the material culture of early Christianity recovered from Italy, Syria, Tunisia, and beyond. The essays place early Christian art representing such symbols as crosses, anchors, and shepherds found in sarcophagi, catacombs, architecture, mosaics, gems, and more in dialogue with New Testament and early Christian texts. Contributors Gregory M. Barnhill, Eric J. Brewer, Jeffrey M. Dale,† Zen Hess, Heidi J. Hornik, Jeffrey M. Hubbard, Robin M. Jensen, Bruce W. Longenecker, Mikeal Parsons, Christian Sanchez, Natalie Webb, Jason A. Whitlark, and David E. Wilhite place early Christian beliefs and practices in their proper historical, cultural, political, and religious contexts for scholars and students of the ancient world.
Author: Steven Bigham
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780974561868
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 240
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Book Description
For all iconophiles, that is, those who accept the dogma of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, but especially the Orthodox who claim that the icon has a sacramental and mystical character, it is naturally disquieting to hear the claim that the early Christians were aniconic and iconophobic. If this claim is true, the theology and the veneration of the icon are seriously undermined. It is, therefore, natural for iconophiles to attempt to disprove the thesis according to which the early Christians had no images whatsoever (aniconic) because they believed them to be idols (iconophobic). It is equally natural for iconophiles to want to substantiate, as much as this is possible, their deep intuition that the roots of Christian iconography go back to the apostolic age. This study weakens the notion and credibility of the alleged hostility of the early Christians to non-idolatrous images, providing a more balanced evaluation of this question.
Author: John Lowden
Publisher: Phaidon Press
ISBN: 9780714831688
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 458
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Book Description
An authoritative account of early Christian and Byzantine art.
Author: Michael Peppard
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300216513
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 343
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Book Description
Michael Peppard provides a historical and theological reassessment of the oldest Christian building ever discovered, the third-century house-church at Dura-Europos. Contrary to commonly held assumptions about Christian initiation, Peppard contends that rituals here did not primarily embody notions of death and resurrection. Rather, he portrays the motifs of the church’s wall paintings as those of empowerment, healing, marriage, and incarnation, while boldly reidentifying the figure of a woman formerly believed to be a repentant sinner as the Virgin Mary. This richly illustrated volume is a breakthrough work that enhances our understanding of early Christianity at the nexus of Bible, art, and ritual.
Author: Robin M. Jensen
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674088808
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 281
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Book Description
The cross stirs intense feelings among Christians as well as non-Christians. Robin Jensen takes readers on an intellectual and spiritual journey through the two-thousand-year evolution of the cross as an idea and an artifact, illuminating the controversies—along with the forms of devotion—this central symbol of Christianity inspires. Jesus’s death on the cross posed a dilemma for Saint Paul and the early Church fathers. Crucifixion was a humiliating form of execution reserved for slaves and criminals. How could their messiah and savior have been subjected to such an ignominious death? Wrestling with this paradox, they reimagined the cross as a triumphant expression of Christ’s sacrificial love and miraculous resurrection. Over time, the symbol’s transformation raised myriad doctrinal questions, particularly about the crucifix—the cross with the figure of Christ—and whether it should emphasize Jesus’s suffering or his glorification. How should Jesus’s body be depicted: alive or dead, naked or dressed? Should it be shown at all? Jensen’s wide-ranging study focuses on the cross in painting and literature, the quest for the “true cross” in Jerusalem, and the symbol’s role in conflicts from the Crusades to wars of colonial conquest. The Cross also reveals how Jews and Muslims viewed the most sacred of all Christian emblems and explains its role in public life in the West today.
Author: Robin M. Jensen
Publisher: Baker Books
ISBN: 1441236279
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 257
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Book Description
What can we learn from early Christian imagery about the theological meaning of baptism? Robin Jensen, a leading scholar of early Christian art and worship, examines multiple dimensions of the early Christian baptismal rite. She explores five models for understanding baptism--as cleansing from sin, sickness, and Satan; as incorporation into the community; as sanctifying and illuminative; as death and regeneration; and as the beginning of the new creation--showing how visual images, poetic language, architectural space, and symbolic actions signify and convey the theological meaning of this ritual practice. Considering image and action together, Jensen offers a holistic and integrated understanding of the power of baptism. The book is illustrated with photos.
Author: Ally Kateusz
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3030111113
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND license. This book reveals exciting early Christian evidence that Mary was remembered as a powerful role model for women leaders—women apostles, baptizers, and presiders at the ritual meal. Early Christian art portrays Mary and other women clergy serving as deacon, presbyter/priest, and bishop. In addition, the two oldest surviving artifacts to depict people at an altar table inside a real church depict women and men in a gender-parallel liturgy inside two of the most important churches in Christendom—Old Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome and the second Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. Dr. Kateusz’s research brings to light centuries of censorship, both ancient and modern, and debunks the modern imagination that from the beginning only men were apostles and clergy.
Author: John A. Rush
Publisher: North Atlantic Books
ISBN: 1623174007
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 401
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Book Description
In The Mushroom in Christian Art, author John A. Rush uses an artistic motif to define the nature of Christian art, establish the identity of Jesus, and expose the motive for his murder. Covering Christian art from 200 CE (common era) to the present, the author reveals that Jesus, the Teacher of Righteousness mentioned in the Dead Sea Scrolls, is a personification of the Holy Mushroom, Amanita muscaria. The mushroom, Rush argues, symbolizes numerous mind-altering substances—psychoactive mushrooms, cannabis, henbane, and mandrake—used by the early, more experimentally minded Christian sects. Drawing on primary historical sources, Rush traces the history—and face—of Jesus as being constructed and codified only after 325 CE. The author relates Jesus’s life to a mushroom typology, discovering its presence, disguised, in early Christian art. In the process, he reveals the ritual nature of the original Christian cults, rites, and rituals, including mushroom use. The book authoritatively uncovers Jesus’s message of peace, love, and spiritual growth and proposes his murder as a conspiracy by powerful reactionary forces who would replace that message with the oppressive religious-political system that endures to this day. Rush’s use of the mushroom motif as a springboard for challenging mainstream views of Western religious history is both provocative and persuasive. The package includes a link to 252 striking color images depicting Christian art, with key motifs indicated by the author.
